Mark, welcome to OCF.

Let me try to answer some of your questions. Your wife's limited mouth opening is called trismus. There isnt an operation to change this. She must work it at least once daily with the popsicle sticks or she will get worse. She should also be stretching her mouth open as wide as possible and holding it several seconds, repeating it several times per day. There is no easy way around trismus. The popsicle sticks will do the same job and the therabite. She should be putting the popsicle sticks on each side of her mouth and sliding more sticks between them. This way it wont bother her tongue. A 30mm opening is pretty good, I had been at 10 and got up to 14. She needs to work hard at this to see improvements.

For pain, ask the doc. There are several things out there. If she finished tx in 2007, how severe is her current pain levels?

As far as the smoking goes. If she doesnt quit, she faces a much higher chance of recurrance. This is something that I cant understand, how someone who has endured OC and its brutal treatments continues to tempt fate. This is probably the real reason she has you doing the screening and filtering of the negative things. I was a smoker and quit upon my diagnosis, threw the cigs right out the window and never smoked again. This is something she must also bring up to the doc and ask for help with. There are several products on the market like Chatix (or something with a similar name) to help with quitting smoking.

As far as drinking goes, I dont do that either. Never was much of a drinker before. Thats something that some on here will do and some wont. Personally, I dont want anything to make my chances for a recurrance any higher. I would think that alchol would be irritating to her tender mouth tissue.

If she is able to eat chicken, she is doing pretty good with eating. Under the food tab, there are many ideas to help your wife expand her menu. So many things that she may be able to eat are listed. A balanced diet is pretty difficult when eating capabilty is compromised.

Best of luck with her continued improvements.





Christine
SCC 6/15/07 L chk & by L molar both Stag I, age44
2x cispltn-35 IMRT end 9/27/07
-65 lbs in 2 mo, no caregvr
Clear PET 1/08
4/4/08 recur L chk Stag I
surg 4/16/08 clr marg
215 HBO dives
3/09 teeth out, trismus
7/2/09 recur, Stg IV
8/24/09 trach, ND, mandiblctmy
3wks medicly inducd coma
2 mo xtended hospital stay, ICU & burn unit
PICC line IV antibx 8 mo
10/4/10, 2/14/11 reconst surg
OC 3x in 3 years
very happy to be alive smile